


Tastes Like Condiments: "Replacements" Vore Spin-Offs

by wolfbunny



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Dismemberment, Ecto-Tongue, Fatal Vore, Fontcest, M/M, Macro/Micro, Swap Papyrus is evil, Underfell Sans, Underswap Papyrus, Undertail, Undertale Sans, Vomit, Vore, bleeding magic, did I mention vore, no happy endings here, shrink rays, this is vore, unwilling pred, unwilling vore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-08-31 01:37:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8558161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfbunny/pseuds/wolfbunny
Summary: In an alternate ending (?) to "Replacements," Underswap Papyrus decides to get rid of Red.In a different alternate ending, Red survives. Blue, meanwhile...Also, it's vore. Read the tags!





	1. Tastes Like Mustard

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Replacements](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7194014) by [idontevenknowugh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontevenknowugh/pseuds/idontevenknowugh). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm vague on when exactly this is set but it could be an alternate Chapter 13.
> 
> BTW I made a sub-blog just for this particular sub-genre and it's lonely, visit it: http://nom-the-skel.tumblr.com

Red had overstayed his welcome. Papyrus leaned against the door outside his lab, blowing smoke from between his teeth as he considered his options. He couldn’t be let go or returned to his original timeline, of course—he might come back with reinforcements. Papyrus didn’t care if he was dusted, but killing him in cold blood didn’t seem very savory. He could let him dust on his own from neglect, but it would be a long, drawn-out, painful process, and that would be bad for Blue. Hmm… What about that little invention that had been lying around in the lab untested? If it didn’t work, no great loss, and if it did, there were several interesting possibilities…

***

“What’s that thing supposed to be? A ray gun?” Sans snorted derisively. It looked like a cheap plastic toy, the kind of thing that occasionally showed up in the dump at Waterfall.

“You’re gonna find out. Probably.”

Sans glared at him uncertainly from where he knelt on the tile floor. At least the asshole had removed his gag.

“Here goes nothing.” The asshole pulled the trigger, and Sans barely had time to flinch. Light filled his vision and he suddenly felt off-balance. He couldn’t feel the floor, as if it had disappeared and he was falling into a bright void.

But the light faded and he clattered onto the tile again. He blinked, looking around. It wasn’t the same tile—it was the same color, but this was an unfamiliar place. Well, not really unfamiliar—it did seem extremely familiar, but it was a wide open space. It seemed to be a giant chamber, with some large metallic objects scattered around, almost like giant chain links. In one direction there were some kind of columns or towers, but they were quite far off. Walls off in the distance extended upwards out of sight. And he was alone. Had he been transported somewhere? Why would the asshole do something like that? Where in the Underground was there a huge monster-made cavern like this? Did they just not have it in his home dimension?

He slowly got to his feet to explore his surroundings a little more, and realized his chains were gone. How had that happened? They must not have been transported with him. He rubbed at the chafed and scarred places on his wrists, savoring his freedom.

Well, he didn’t know why the asshole had sent him here, but he didn’t want to be sitting here waiting if the asshole came to get him back. He struck off for one of the nearer piles of metal objects. Maybe they were machines of some kind, and in any case they might provide some cover if the asshole came searching for him.

Something slammed into the ground in front of him—a thick pole the color of bone. Actually, it was shaped just like a skeleton’s distal phalange. And above it was another phalange—just like a giant skeletal finger. And a short distance away, there was another. And on the other side, another—it was as if—as if a giant hand had just slammed down to cage him—

***

“Y-you vaporized him!”

Papyrus smiled at Blue’s dismay. “No, I didn’t. Relax. It worked.”

He knelt down carefully, trying to stay hidden from Red, who had struck out across the floor toward one of the chain links left lying there. Papyrus carefully picked him up off the floor. It would be so easy to crush him by accident. He was about the same size as the larger skeleton’s distal phalange.

The chains had been left behind without doing any damage to Red, he noticed, pleased. The only thing other than Red’s actual bones that had shrunk was his gold tooth. He hadn’t expected the chains to shrink along with him, but there had been a risk that they would rip through his bones as he shrank. Still, he hadn’t been able to risk taking them off, considering how violent Red had proved himself to be.

Papyrus cupped his hand and let the tiny skeleton sit on his metacarpals, almost knocking him over with the motion as he moved to let Blue see. Blue kept his distance but leaned closer, eyelights shrinking with horror as he realized what had happened.

“W-what are you gonna do with him?”

Papyrus considered Red, who was sitting, holding himself upright with his arms on the unstable and uneven surface, staring back at him in dread.

“What do you think I should do, Blue?”

Blue froze for a moment. “Keep him in a box … with air holes,” he suggested. Something not too horrible, but still realistic. Although if he actually did such a thing, he would probably use a glass jar—harder to escape from.

Papyrus smiled gently at Blue. “That could be fun. But it’s not very exciting. Any other ideas?” The smile lost its gentleness as he directed it toward Red.

Blue started to panic, searching for something that would satisfy Papyrus but minimize harm to Red. It was futile, of course. Papyrus had already decided what he was going to do.

He manifested his tongue, eliciting a strangled noise from Blue. He gave Red a full-body lick, pressing him against his hand but careful not to apply enough pressure to damage him. The tiny skeleton spluttered in outrage, but if he said anything his voice didn’t reach Papyrus.

He tried to repeat the performance, but this time Red was ready. He latched onto Papyrus’s tongue and bit into it. But his teeth were so small now that it barely even registered as pain. Papyrus took advantage of Red’s being latched on to scoop him up with the tip of his tongue and pop him into his mouth.

“M-Mustard!” Blue exclaimed.

Papyrus looked at his remaining prisoner in confusion as he rolled Red around on his tongue inside his mouth. What did mustard have to do with anything? Blue slapped a hand to his mouth as if in horror at letting the word slip out. But he could just be horrified by what Papyrus was doing to Red. He spit the tiny skeleton back into his hand so that he could talk.

“You want mustard on your sandwich next time, Blue? This isn’t the time for condiment preferences.”

Blue’s eyelights were locked on his hand, where Red sprawled, damp with fluid magic.

“The word ‘mustard’ mean anything to you?” Papyrus asked Red. The shrunken skeleton flinched at the word. It must be something important to them. But why bring it up in this situation? He had given them sandwiches with mustard at some point, but even assuming they had squirreled them away somewhere rather than eating them, what good would it do them now? It must be some sort of code word—unless…

“Oh, I get it. You don’t like my nickname for you, Red? You had to come up with your own?” He carefully pinched Red’s legs between the fingers of his free hand and lifted him, letting him dangle upside down. “I don’t know why you’d go with ‘Mustard’. Is it the color of your tooth there? I would think you’re more of a ‘Ketchup’ since your magic’s red.”

Red didn’t respond beyond trying to squirm free of Papyrus’s phalanges, despite the fact that the drop would probably kill him if he succeeded.

“Well, if you’re mustard I guess I had better put you in a sandwich.”

Red redoubled his struggles. Papyrus glanced at Blue to see his eyelights shrunken to terrified pinpricks.

“Don’t like that idea?” Papyrus smiled indulgently. “Don’t worry, I’m only kidding. I’m far too lazy to go get some bread.” He opened his jaws, tongue lolling out, and lifted Red up and dropped him in before he or Blue could react. And swallowed.

Blue’s eyelights disappeared completely. He didn’t move at all, still leaning forward from when he was trying to get a better view of Red in Papyrus’s hands.

“You okay, Blue?” Papyrus walked over to him, grazing his phalanges gently across the smaller skeleton’s skull. “Don’t worry. I would never do that to you. You saw what a troublemaker he was.” Papyrus frowned as Blue still didn’t move or react. “Besides, this way it’s not like he’s really gone. He’s still right here.” Papyrus patted his sweatshirt where his stomach would be if he’d had one.

Blue turned hopefully, inhaling sharply.

“Not literally.” Papyrus dashed his hopes. There wasn’t much difference between a monster and monster food, really, both being composed largely of magic. The magic that made up Red had been absorbed instantly, converted and added to Papyrus’s own stores of magic. It was merciful, really, compared to what would have happened if Papyrus had been a dog or a rabbit or some other more fleshy monster.

Blue kept staring at Papyrus’s lack of a stomach, tears suddenly welling up from his eyes. Papyrus knelt and hugged the smaller skeleton against him. “There, there, Blue. I won’t let you be lonely.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This happened because I said to myself, "At least Replacements is safe from getting a vore spin-off, because I don't have any ideas.... UNLESS...!"
> 
> Then I just threw in every idea I had :3
> 
> Too bad Papyrus can't control the resets or he could give Mustard another chance after this ^^;  
>  Maybe there will be a reset, and he'll be extremely traumatized but alive :3
> 
> Did Papyrus invent the shrink ray, or did he get it from Undyne? I just needed Mustard to be nommable size, and magic doesn't work in the lab :3


	2. Tastes Like Ketchup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An alternate version, set earlier in "Replacements".
> 
> What if Swap Papyrus's desires that need rechanneling were of a more nommy variety?
> 
> Non-con (though I mostly hand-wave the sex part) and unwilling fatal soft vore, and just a bit of kinda graphic digestion.

The demon hadn’t brought any food, just a drinking glass and what looked like a ray gun out of one of one of the science fiction stories Sans was lucky enough to find on occasion at the dump in Waterfall.

“What’s that?” Mustard was brave enough to ask.

“You’ll find out in a minute.” The demon set down the glass and beckoned for Mustard to move away from Sans. Mustard just looked at him for a few long seconds, but he lost the contest of wills and reluctantly shuffled away from Sans and the dog bed. He tensed as the demon aimed the ray gun at him. Sans stopped himself from moving to help Mustard—there wasn’t anything he could do.

The demon pulled the trigger. Sans opened his mouth to protest, but it was too late. Mustard had disappeared in a flash of light.

“You … you vaporized him!” Sans moved closer to look for any sign of his companion, as fast as he could while hindered by his chains. Mustard’s chains were lying slack on the floor.

“Nope. No, I didn’t.” The demon sounded pleased with himself. He stepped forward and plucked something out of the tangle of chains, cupping it in his hands and holding it out for Sans to see. Sans squinted to make it out, hoping it wasn’t some gory remnant of his friend.

“M—Red!” He stopped himself from using their private nickname. The other skeleton was intact, but not much more than an inch tall, if that. He turned to look at Sans, his expression dazed.

“See? It worked!” The demon dropped Mustard into the drinking glass, where he scrambled to his feet and immediately started clawing in vain at the sheer glass surface. “Your turn next.” The demon took aim with the ray gun—shrink ray—it really was like something from a cheesy science fiction story.

“W-what?” Sans stared in dismay, his mind skipping like a broken record.

“Red was just a test run. I didn’t want to risk you, Blue, in case this thing didn’t work as expected.”

“N-no, don’t—” Sans raised his hands in surrender and started to back away, but it was pointless. He felt an electric jolt as the ray tore through him, and by the time he came to his senses, the demon was lifting him up in his now-enormous hand.

Sans scrambled toward the edge, but a glimpse of the rapidly receding floor gave him second thoughts. Nevertheless, the demon’s other hand appeared to block his escape. He turned to face the demon as he was lifted to eye level. It was hard to read the expression on a face many times taller than himself from this close, but the malevolent glint in the demon’s eye made his marrow run cold.

The demon used one phalange to knock him sprawling against his metacarpals, delighting in how easy it was to overpower his minuscule captive. Sans caught a glimpse of Mustard watching from his glass prison on the distant table. He turned back to the demon just in time to be overwhelmed by a huge golden tongue. It pressed him against the demon’s hand and then mercifully withdrew.

Sans shuddered as the demon watched him, considering what to do next. He tilted his hand, bringing Sans upright, and sticking out his tongue again, set the tiny skeleton astride it. Sans could only close his eyes and bear it as the demon’s probing tongue called forth his magic. With his eyes closed, the demon’s continuing ministrations were almost enough to make him forget his current predicament.

Soon enough the demon’s tongue drew out his climax and he fell forward onto it with a final moan. He found himself staring into the demon’s open mouth. His hands slipped against the slick surface as he tried to prop himself up, push himself back out. Hopefully the demon wouldn’t let him fall.

He yelped as the demon’s incisors pressed him down against the tongue, not really biting him but holding him in place. He couldn’t do anything but stare into the demon’s mouth. The demon had put some effort into it, forming not only a tongue but some other elements of the interior—walls of translucent magic that didn’t block the light leaking in through his skeletal jaws; gums and palate and even a uvula. The magic had its own faint glow as well, so he could see everything quite well. It might have been strangely beautiful if he hadn’t been so terrified.

“Oh, stars! What are you going to do?” he squeaked, unsure if the demon could even hear him. Maybe he had—the teeth withdrew from his back. He tried again to lift himself off the demon’s tongue. Something pushed him down again—the demon’s phalange—and deeper into the mouth.

“N-no, please!” Sans was really starting to panic now. He couldn’t get any purchase on the demon’s tongue. “Don’t eat me!”

If the demon heard at all, he ignored Sans’s pleas. The dexterous tongue lifted up and scooped the tiny skeleton all the way into his mouth. Sans rolled over to make a desperate grab for the lower row of teeth—they might be less slippery—but the powerful tongue pushed him back, deeper, toward the throat. He scrabbled against it helplessly. He could only hope that the demon was merely tormenting him and wasn’t really planning to—to—

That hope grew slimmer as the tongue pushed him all the way back to the entrance of the throat. What would happen to him if—… Skeletons didn’t have esophagi or stomachs; had the demon constructed those from magic, too? The tongue rose up like a wave and dumped Sans into the opening. He felt only numbness as he saw his hands begin to dissolve in front of his eyes—

 

***

 

“You … you ate him? I can’t believe it. You ate him!”

Papyrus looked smugly at the remaining tiny skeleton trapped in the glass. That had been everything he had hoped for. The replacement had served his purpose beautifully—he couldn’t do this with his brother for obvious reasons, but Blue had been, he dared to say, just as good. He walked over to pick up the chains left lying on the floor, stopping as he passed Red in his little prison. Red wasn’t quite as suited to replace his Sans, but he would probably be good enough for a fun time, he thought, looking down at him. Red must have sensed what he was thinking, as he cowered at the bottom of the glass. No, Red would be a disappointment after Blue. He would find another for next time. There were plenty of fish in the sea—or timelines in the multiverse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Mustard return to normal size? Maybe!  
> Will Mustard eventually get nommed too? Maybe, but he survived this story!


	3. Tastes Like Ketchup, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is neither Ketchup nor ketchup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep making this thing more and more horrible ^^;;;
> 
> Seriously, this chapter is disturbing even given what came before. Turn back now.
> 
> Needed another Sans to get eaten but couldn't think of a major AU Sans that was just right, and didn't want to get vore on any minor AU Sanses, so I made up my own. There are so many Sans-based OCs, I hope he isn't too similar to an existing one :3

Every time the asshole went out hunting with his shrink ray, Sans hoped he wouldn’t come back. Even if that meant Sans starved to death here in the lab, it was better than keeping on like this forever. It had to be dangerous going into unknown universes and abducting monsters. He’d been injured a couple times already, but the damage was sadly minor.

He had nothing better to do than stare at the portal, so he saw immediately when the asshole stepped back through. A useless fight-or-flight reflex quickened his soul, but he stayed where he was, as if the asshole might not notice he was there, might forget he was stuck there attached to the wall by a chain. Sans had been docile since he’d seen what happened to Ketchup, too terrified of pissing their captor off to cause any trouble. He hated himself for it, but that was a minor concern.

The tormenter seemed less exhilarated than he usually was when returning from a hunt. He wasn’t obviously injured—he just lacked the air of triumph as he walked toward Sans. Had he—had he not caught anything? Sans shivered involuntarily. Did that mean it was finally his turn? Sans shrank back, chains clinking, as the taller skeleton approached.

The asshole stopped in front of him and sighed wearily. Sans did not like where this was going.

He couldn’t take the suspense anymore. “No luck today?” he asked, his tone almost cheerful.

“Not really. All I caught was this.” The asshole lifted something white and fluffy out of his pocket. Sans was not surprised at all to make out the form of a tiny skeleton—the white fluff was its jacket collar. It was perhaps a couple inches tall—the shrink ray seemed to have some variation in the exact size ratio it produced. The skeleton was struggling in rage. It reminded Sans of himself a bit, before he’d been worn down by … his current circumstances. It had a black jacket with a fluffy collar just like he favored, but the collar was pure white. And it had pointed teeth, though none of them was gold—there really wasn’t much color on it, until its eye lit up with a flash of yellow electricity. It spasmed as the magic dampeners turned its magic back on it.

None of this was unusual. Sans had seen it happen over and over, and by this point he had managed to become accustomed to it, not sparing much empathy for the doomed alternate versions of himself so as to protect his own psyche. In fact, though he hated himself a little more for it, he even felt relief that the hunter had caught something—someone—sparing him from the grisly fate himself. But this one reminded him so much of himself, he felt a familiar pang of sorrow. He hoped the asshole would get it over with quickly and not draw out the little skeleton’s suffering.

The bigger skeleton regarded his prey unenthusiastically as it shuddered and hung limp from his fingers. “This one just doesn’t look very tasty,” he complained.

Sans felt even worse for the little skeleton. The asshole would probably eat it anyway—and even if he didn’t, it would no doubt die in some other horrible way. And a little insulted—you’d think he would have enough manners not to insult the flavor of someone he was going to eat. Plus the little monochrome skeleton had so many similarities to Sans himself—that was most likely the problem, actually. Sans was only still here because the fucker hadn’t found him as appetizing as Ketchup…

The fucker undressed the shrunken skeleton while it was still dazed, dropping the clothes on the table near the drawer where he’d stashed all his previous victims’ clothing. If he could find dolls of the appropriate size, he could probably make a lot of gold off of that. Assuming that the shrinking effect was permanent. Sans himself had returned to his original size after a few hours, but it seemed to work differently with non-living materials.

Sans stared at the discarded jacket, avoiding looking at the asshole, hoping to miss the show, until he realized the taller skeleton was walking right over to him. He kneeled down in front of him, and Sans scooted back until he hit the wall, only a foot or so but it obliged the asshole to move a step forward to close the distance again.

Stars, what did he want? He still had the tiny skeleton cupped in his hand—it was more alert now and seemed to be chewing a phalange—but he was staring at Sans as if he’d had an idea. That was a terrifying prospect.

Sans preferred the suspense to finding out what the fucker’s idea was.

Eventually the taller skeleton broke the silence. “You know, Red. I think this one is more to your tastes than mine.”

Oh, stars.

Sans pressed himself harder against the wall.

“Open up.”

Sans shook his head.

“Come on, Red. How do you know you won’t like it if you don’t try it?” The asshole pressed the tiny angry skeleton against Sans’s teeth. He could feel its tiny hands pressing against his skull. He squeezed his jaws closed tighter.

“Don’t be stubborn. You know I can make your life hell.”

Sans closed his eyes tight too, turning his face to one side.

“No? Okay, fine. Have it your way.”

Sans risked a peek at his tormenter. He was still leaning over Sans, but he’d withdrawn the tiny captive and was smiling indulgently. Sans opened his eyes and turned to face him again.

The asshole opened his mouth and popped the little skeleton inside. Sans jumped a little at the suddenness of it, but it was a relief—that skeleton was doomed anyway, so it was best to get it over with quickly, and as horrible as it was to watch, it was a vast improvement over doing it himself.

The fucker took advantage of the moment Sans let down his guard to pry his jaw open and kiss him, his tongue pushing the tiny skeleton into Sans’s mouth.

Sans formed his own tongue to push the skeleton back out, but the fucker had shoved him in deep, and held Sans’s jaw closed as he withdrew from the kiss. He pulled Sans into a hug and turned him around so that he could press down on his skull with his ribcage, leaving one hand free to hold Sans’s jaw and the other to stroke it to encourage him to swallow.

Sans struggled and pressed the tiny skeleton against his teeth with his tongue. After a moment he realized he must be crushing the little thing and stopped; it seemed to be fine judging from the way it scrabbled at his teeth, searching for a gap or a handhold. Sans focused on getting his jaws open, and by shifting the angle of his skull he managed to part them—but only for an instant before the asshole snapped them shut again, catching the tiny skeleton’s hand between the sharp teeth. The little one managed to pull its hand free but its efforts to escape felt weaker after that.

“Just swallow it,” the fucker crooned in a soothing tone. “You know you’re going to. You’re just making it suffer by delaying the inevitable.”

Sans glared at him. The worst thing was that he was probably right. And it wasn’t as if Sans had never killed a monster before—but not like this—not like _this_ —

Sans strained against the fucker’s hands, tears forming and spilling out of his eyesockets.

“Aww. Okay, Red, you don’t have to do it. Give him back to me. But mouth-to-mouth.”

The fucker spun Sans around again and pressed their mouths together before he could react. Sans parted his teeth to let him in—whether to comply with the command or just because he’d been straining to open his mouth this whole time, he couldn’t say.

But it was a mistake. The golden tongue snaked in and pushed the tiny skeleton deep into Sans’s throat. Sans gagged, and then swallowed by reflex.

His eyelights shrank in horror at the realization of what had just happened. His tormenter sat back, smirking with satisfaction.

“Good boy, Red. Wasn’t that nice?”

Sans could feel the shock of foreign magic in his system—but not that dissimilar to his own. Another hot tear slid down his skull.

The asshole put an arm around Sans’s back and drew him into another, gentler hug. Sans turned his head and vomited magic. He had the sense to try not to get it on his captor, but wasn’t entirely successful. It was his signature red, but with streaks of pale yellow—his victim’s magic that hadn’t been naturalized yet. Oh stars, he was a cannibal.

“Aw, you wasted him,” the fucker teased. Just when Sans thought there was no way he could feel worse about this. The little pointy-toothed skeleton with the electric magic was dead and the magic he left behind wasn’t even put to any use.

“There, there.” The larger skeleton patted him comfortingly. “You’ll do better next time.”

Sans froze, just barely keeping his own eye from lighting up.

“Maybe I’ll bring back two, one for each of us. I’ve got all kinds of ideas we can try.” He traced his fingers affectionately along Sans’s ribs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Lightning Sans.
> 
> Later, Swap Paps heard Mustard crying over “ketchup” and so he slathered one of the little skels in ketchup :3
> 
> Then, Swap Paps got himself killed in some dangerous universe and Mustard almost starved to death but was eventually rescued by Alphys, and he was very traumatized, the end :3


	4. Tastes Like Ketchup, part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Swap Paps gets some just desserts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between the previous chapter and this chapter, [this happened](http://idontevenknowwhattoputhereugh.tumblr.com/post/156979050320/gift-fic-for-lycovore) (Warnings: Rape, Noncon, Vore, Unwilling vore, Death, HoneyMustard, macro micro). Thank you Uggy, you're the best ^w^ <3
> 
> Also, here's [a picture](http://nom-the-skel.tumblr.com/post/157278467200/here-appreciate-this-picture-of-a-cute-dog-sans) for this chapter. (Nothing exciting, just a cute puppy.)

Papyrus trudged through the snow towards the place where Sans’s sentry station usually was. Sure enough, the station was there, and a short figure was leaning against it. Most of the Sanses were so much lazier than his own brother, it wasn’t unusual at all.

But as he got closer he realized this Sans was much different from any he’d seen (or abducted) before. Triangular canine ears perched on its head, for one thing. He’d seen one or two that had animalistic ears growing inexplicably from their skulls, but this one was covered with thick white fur all over, and had a bit of a muzzle, with a black nose on the end above an appropriately Sans-like toothy grin—it was just a regular dog, not a skeleton at all. By the time he was close enough to see it well, it had noticed him, perking its ears and raising its head. It was wearing the same blue hoodie as Blue had had, resting with its arms folded on the counter of the sentry station.

He’d been staring so hard at this most unusually non-skeletal iteration of Sans that he didn’t notice a larger shape lurking in the trees until it bounded over. It was a much bigger dog, walking on four legs, wearing a red scarf—bigger than any of the dogs in the Royal Guard, and at least as fluffy. It would have been intimidating if it didn’t look so friendly and happy to see him.

He turned his focus back to the Sans dog. It wasn’t very appealing. He imagined all that fur in his mouth. And it would probably taste like dog. Although, he was a bit curious how much the Sans taste would come through, now that he thought about it. And he did hate to waste a trip. He continued walking toward the dogs, gripping the handle of the shrink ray in his pocket. He could shrink the big dog too, just to stop it causing any trouble; by the time it returned to its normal size he would be long gone.

“Hey,” he greeted as he arrived within a few steps of the station. “You must be Sans.”

The Sans dog had still barely moved after catching sight of him, but the other dog was having fits of excitement. He felt like he had better get this over with before anything happened. But as he gripped the shrink ray to pull it out, the big dog finally pounced on him, knocking him into the snow.

“Papyrus, don’t—” The Sans dog leaned over the edge of the station to look down at him with an exasperated sigh. “Sorry, he gets so excited. But I can’t really blame him. Did you know that you seem to be made entirely of bones?”

So this was the Papyrus in this world. Papyrus couldn’t see the resemblance at all. The big dog was busily licking his face despite his best efforts to ward it off. Not wanting to reveal the shrink ray without a clear shot, he let go of it in order to use both hands to protect himself.

The dog seemed for a moment to get the message, but the next thing he knew it was tugging playfully on his shoes. He tried to kick at it but it pulled one shoe right off and then started on the other.

“Paps, what are you doing?” the Sans dog scolded. Papyrus looked up at him for assistance, but he just watched the bigger dog with mild concern.

The Papyrus dog meanwhile had pulled off his other shoe and was licking his feet, its tongue wet and warm in contrast to the snow, enveloping them in its softness. He looked down to see with some alarm that the dog had stuck both his feet into its mouth.

“Stop it, you mutt!” He tried to brace with one foot to pull the other out, but the dog bit down on his ankles, still wagging its tail.

“Paps, you can’t eat a guy just because he’s made of bones.” The Sans dog took his side, but didn’t make a move to stop his brother.

The big dog opened its mouth only to push its jaws further up his tibiae and fibulae. It would have been like a pleasantly warm footbath if it weren’t so horrific.

Papyrus started to panic. He could barely move his feet now and when he squirmed the dog just used the motion to work him that little bit deeper into its mouth.

“Sorry about my bro, man,” the Sans dog apologized, as if the other dog was just causing him slight annoyance. “He usually listens to me. But he just really likes bones.” He shrugged helplessly. “Maybe he’ll stop when he gets to your pants. They probably don’t taste too good.”

The bigger dog did not stop when he got to Papyrus’s pants. Papyrus was now waist-deep in the dog’s gullet, with its massive forepaws surrounding his upper body on both sides. His mind skipped helplessly. Why was the Sans dog just sitting there? “Sans! Don’t just watch; you gotta stop him!” At least he hadn’t already shrunken the Sans when this happened—then there would have been no one to help him.

The Sans dog wasn’t much motivated by his pleas. Rather, he folded his arms again, relaxing on the sentry station counter as he watched the scene play out. “Sorry, dude, I can’t really make him do anything. I’ll have a good talk with him later, though.”

“That doesn’t do me any goo-UAGH!” Papyrus yelped as the dog gulped him deeper, his hoodie bunching up. The shrink ray fell out of his pocket—he reached for it. Maybe if he shrank the big dog, it would get it off of him. He wasn’t sure it would be safe for the dog, but this was self-defense. He wasn’t completely sure it would be safe for himself either, but he was rapidly running out of options.

The dog sat up, lifting him bodily out of the snow and away from the shrink ray. Papyrus growled in frustration, but it came out as more of a whine.

“Sans! Sans, you’ve got to hand me that,” he pleaded as the bigger dog let his ribs slide deeper into its mouth.

The Sans dog narrowed his eyes at the object in the snow. “What is it? Looks like some sorta weapon.”

“It’s not, it’s harmless, I swear. It’s a shrink ray. It’ll get him off me, and he’ll be back to normal in a few hours. Please, before it’s too late!” Fortunately this was all basically true, since Papyrus didn’t have much time to come up with a convincing lie. He left out the possibility that things might get gory if the dog shrank but the bones already inside it didn’t, but at this point he didn’t care about that in the slightest. “Just point it at him and pull the trigger!”

The Sans dog didn’t move. “I dunno, pal, it seems kinda risky to me.”

“No, it’s perfectly safe. I’ve used it a hundred times!”

The big dog gulped again and Papyrus’s jaw was resting against its nose. He didn’t have much time left to convince the Sans dog. If he was all the way inside, he was pretty sure he’d just be shrunk along with the dog and his situation would not be improved.

“Paps, are you really gonna do that?” The Sans dog addressed his brother again. “Well, I guess once you’ve gone this far, you might as well go all the way.”

The big dog had Papyrus’s skull between its jaws now.

“Sorry again, bone dude.” The Sans dog averted his eyes as the Papyrus dog gulped, then looked up to see his brother slurping up the skeleton’s arms. He chuckled a little, both because his brother looked funny slurping up bones like they were spaghetti and because the situation was so bizarre. “Paps, you know you can’t eat a guy just because he’s made out of bones. Bad dog, Paps.”

The bigger dog was beaming with satisfaction but its head drooped at the admonition.


	5. TLK part 4: Mustard Among the Liliputians

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad times for Mustard continue.

“Why are you all so tiny?” Sans couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Why are YOU so enormously huge?” the other skeleton countered.

“I’m not, I’m normal sized!”

“Nuh uh,” insisted the little skeleton. “Look around. I’m normal size, Cherry is normal size,” (he pointed to a pointy-toothed skeleton dressed in red) “Stretch is a little bit tall but basically normal size,” (a taller but still minuscule skeleton dressed in orange) “everyone in Skeletown is, not the same size but within a reasonable range! And then there’s you! You’re humongous!”

“Yeah, but you’re tiny. Look at the trees; they’re normal size. It must take you like an hour to walk around one.”

“That’s just how big trees are! Maybe you have tiny trees where you come from?” The little blue-clad skeleton crossed his arms adamantly.

How had he ended up here? He had just wanted to go home. He’d been so glad when the asshole didn’t come back, but on the other hand, he’d been trapped chained up in the lab with no food. It was hard to say which was worse, considering what the asshole had been feeding him. He didn’t even want to admit to himself that he’d started to wish the asshole would come back, and bring him another—he was just so hungry. He tried to direct his fantasies to more normal food, but it had been so long since he’d eaten anything else. He cursed the asshole for conditioning him like this.

And he hadn’t eaten since his rescue, either. At least the native Sans had brought him a robe to cover up with, though it did nothing against the snow. But Alphys had been asking him so many questions he didn’t want to answer—they didn’t need to know Ketchup was ever there—or the others—and if the asshole was dead, let his brother grieve him without knowing the awful things he’d done—but the Alphys there was so aggressive—he just wanted to get back to his own timeline and his own brother, and Grillby’s if at all possible. The native Sans had gone to get him something to eat, and when Alphys turned her back he had made a run for it. But she had tried to stop him, and something must have happened to the machine just as he was going through the portal, and here he was. It looked like Snowdin, without the actual village of Snowdin. Instead there was a tiny village full of tiny skeletons.

“Okay, I give. You’re normal size, and me and everyone I know are just freakishly huge. Do you have anything to eat?”

The little skeleton looked taken aback, but he recovered. “Of course! Skeletown is always hospitable to monsters in need. We’ll fix you something right away.”

The tiny skeletons consulted with each other and ran off to different buildings. It felt like hours before all their bustling around yielded a huge platter of food—it looked like spaghetti. It was a little hard to tell because a huge platter by their standards was about a spoonful to Sans. He delicately lifted it up out of the hands of the two skeletons who were carrying it and dumped it onto his tongue. It was a small-ish bite of food, nothing even approaching a mouthful. He carefully returned the tray, feeling hungrier than ever.

 

***

 

“Don’t worry, Sans.” The little blue-clad skeleton, who had introduced himself as Blueberry, reached out and patted the distal phalange of one of his toes. “We’ll find more food somehow.”

It had been a day since Sans arrived at the village of tiny skeletons, and they had done their best to feed him, but they couldn’t use up all their stores on just one monster without risking starvation, and their supplies didn’t go very far for a monster so much bigger than them. He’d had an almost decent meal the first day, as they fed him everything they could spare, but now they had to find other solutions.

Sans stared down at Blueberry. He was grateful, really. But his situation was untenable. He’d been freed from the asshole only to get stuck here, where if there was a version of the machine in Skeletown, which seemed unlikely (a lot of the skeletons resembled him and the other Sanses but none were actually named Sans, for one thing), it was definitely too small to do him any good. And there was nothing to eat in the snowy forest. He’d ventured down the path toward Waterfall, with Blueberry riding on his shoulder as a guide, but the tunnel that he thought must lead there—the layout of the caverns was similar but not exactly the same as his own version, so far as he could tell—had been blocked by a rock slide. Blueberry might have found a way through the gaps, but not Sans. So he’d come back to the town, where Blueberry promised they’d find a way to help.

“And if we water it down there should be—Sans? Are you drooling?”

Sans hastily wiped his mouth. Oh stars, he’d been staring at Blueberry and salivating because the little skeleton just looked so delicious. How could he have let himself start thinking this way? He should have just answered Alphys’s questions. She should have just let him go.

 

***

 

The little skeletons had tried to fill him up with a large amount of very thin soup, carried in the largest containers they could find that they could also move. It had helped, but it wasn’t enough. Sans sat a little distance from the town, hugging his knees in the snow, dozing, not expending energy, when Blueberry approached.

“Sans?” he called, his voice small even though he was easily the loudest of the tiny skeletons that Sans had met. “I have an ide-whoa!”

Sans had reached out and grabbed him without thinking.

He didn’t know why it was so cold in the lab, but if the asshole had been trying to make him more compliant with this starvation regime, he had to admit it was working. He hated to give in—he knew the asshole would enjoy seeing him do something like this of his own volition—but if he didn’t, the asshole would either go back to forcing him or just let him dust. Maybe he should let himself dust rather than do this, but would that really help anyone? The asshole would just eat the little skeleton himself anyway, right? Part of his mind suggested the asshole wouldn’t acquire as many skeletons if Sans wasn’t there to feed, but his sense of self-preservation told it to shut up.

There was no need to draw it out. He lifted the little skeleton above face level, opened his jaws and dropped it onto his tongue. It shrieked as it fell, and scrabbled its cold little hands against the inside of his mouth. He shouldn’t let it suffer—he should just swallow it without stopping to appreciate the taste—but it had been so long—

“SANS! What are you DOING?” The voice came from inside his skull. Why did it know his name? The asshole never talked to them, and if he had he would have called Sans “Red,” not “Sans.” But the little ones were Sanses themselves, before they got kidnapped and shrunk—maybe it had made the logical leap that he was also a Sans because they looked similar. He thought about it as he guided the little skeleton deeper toward his throat, idly studying the snow piled up against the trees, the little houses in the distance…

This wasn’t the lab.

Oh stars, what had he done? He spat Blueberry into his hands, cradling the miniature skeleton as he stared up at him, tears streaming at his friend’s betrayal. Hands shaking, Sans dropped Blueberry into the snow as gently as he could manage, and teleported to the tunnel entrance that he guessed led to Waterfall.

The cavern layout was not a precise match. He wasn’t sure if he could teleport to another cave here without having been there. If he tried to jump to a cave that wasn’t there—well, he hated to think what would happen. But even though he wasn’t any kind of survivalist, he knew there were edible plants in Waterfall, and right now that seemed worth the risk.

It wasn’t like he was really being selfless or anything, he told himself. Even if he did, hypothetically, decide to put his own welfare above Bluberry’s and the other miniature skeletons’, what would he do after they were gone? He’d be even worse off than he was now, and they’d have died for no good reason. It felt strange to consider the lives of the tiny skeletons, when he hadn’t had that luxury for such a long time—and it was a little revolting that it felt so strange.

He called to mind a part of Waterfall that was not far from here, and spacious. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too different, and there would be leeway if he was off-target.

 

***

 

“Sans! I’m sorry it took so long. Dr. Alphys had a lot of trouble finding you.”

Sans blinked groggily, too surprised to see Papyrus at the entrance of his damp little cave to appreciate the rare phenomenon of an apology from his brother.

“Boss?”

“Why are you in Waterfall? The portal should have taken you to Snowdin. Never mind, come with me!”

Papyrus pulled at his arm, but he just blinked, making no move to get up.

“Come on, Sans, we have to get back before the portal closes!”

Sans just looked up at him dully, so Papyrus dragged him out and carried him back through the portal.

“S-Sans! You’re back!”

Sans realized he was in Dr. Alphys’s lab, back home—or at least close enough that he could take a shortcut back to his own house in Snowdin. It didn’t seem real.

“What happened, Sans? How did you get to that other timeline?” Papyrus demanded.

“How…how did you find me?” Sans asked. Papyrus glowered at having his own question ignored.

“I was able t-to track down your signature, and j-just a couple days ago I managed to t-target a portal on your current timeline,” Alphys explained. “It, um, it looked like you jumped timelines once while I was w-working on it.”

“Yeah, I…I escaped…” Sans agreed.

“Escaped from who?” Papyrus demanded.

“He didn’t—I didn’t—they shouldn’t have come looking for me.”

“What are you talking about, Sans?” Papyrus huffed impatiently.

“I was so hungry. Water sausages aren’t—they aren’t that filling, you know?”

“Sans, I d-don’t understand—”

“Stop rambling and just tell us what happened.”

“I was so hungry, and—and he shouldn’t have come looking for me.”

“Sans, are you c-crying?” Alphys hissed, as if to warn him before Papyrus noticed.

Papyrus just folded his arms impatiently as Sans fell to his knees, staring in horror at his own hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Mustard, you're a pred now :3


	6. TLK part 5: It's Raining Tacos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taco (Swap Sans) goes in search of his brother. Surely nothing awful will happen to him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Tastes Like Ketchup:  
> Swap Paps has a shrink ray and a desire to pred.  
> Ketchup--nommed! Lots of other Sanses--nommed!  
> Swap Paps went to Doggertale in search of Sanses and got himself nommed instead.  
> Mustard was eventually rescued and immediately escaped to the land of delicious bitties, where he was re-rescued by Fell Alphys and Fell Papyrus.
> 
> There's a picture [on my tumblr](http://nom-the-skel.tumblr.com/post/161286060260/tastes-like-ketchup-part-5-its-raining-tacos-a)

Undyne had said it was too dangerous, and Alphys had abided by her judgment. But Sans couldn’t sit still and do nothing, and there were no other clues to where his brother might have gone. It had taken him a while to figure out the machine and build up the courage to open a portal to the last destination—presumably where the mysterious skeleton they’d found chained up in the basement had ended up. It wasn’t that he expected to find his brother there, but that sharp-toothed skeleton with the cracked skull was the only one who could tell him where Papyrus had gone—and he might well need help, himself. But Sans hadn’t found the skeleton, only a strange alternate version of Snowdin where the buildings were tiny, and the tiny skeletons who lived there had fled the moment they saw him.

He had been disappointed not to find the skeleton, but looking on the bright side, the machine had worked and he’d gotten back safely. He set it for the destination before that one. There was a long list of destinations, and if his brother had been using the machine, it made sense that that would be the last place he’d gone. It had been weeks since this particular portal had been opened, but he couldn’t give up hope. Papyrus might be trapped on the other side for some reason, just waiting to be rescued. And then he could explain why that other skeleton had been chained up in the lab. There must be an explanation.

The portal opened onto snowy woods, the same as the ones around Snowdin. Sans was familiar with the area from his patrols. These woods weren’t exactly the same, but there was something very familiar about them. After walking a short distance he realized the relative position of every tree was the precise mirror image of the trees back home. Weird, and a little unsettling, but now that he’d noticed it was easy to get his bearings. He headed in the direction in which he could expect to find Snowdin.

Sans came upon a sentry post. Something blue and white was sitting on the counter. As he approached it perked up its ears and lifted its head—it was a dog, wearing a blue hoodie.

“Oh, another one!” said the dog. “Hey, skeleton, you better get out of here before—”

A snowdrift behind the sentry station rose up, revealing itself to be another, much larger dog, wearing a red scarf.

The small dog gestured urgently at Sans, shooing him back in the direction he came from. Sans was starting to turn when he saw the big dog launch itself toward him across the snow. He ran for it. He could come back later to look for Papyrus, when the big dog wasn’t there. The little dog seemed like it might be willing to talk to him if he could get it alone.

He made it a yard before the big dog pounced on him.

“Gently, Paps, please!” the smaller dog urged.

The big dog backed off, and as Sans picked himself up out of the snow he saw that it was play-bowing and wagging its tail.

“I’m sorry, doggy. Normally the Magnificent Sans would be happy to play with you, but right now I am looking for my brother.”

The dog snatched him up and shook him, then dropped him back onto the snow, too dizzy to stand again.

“Ah, sorry, little skeleton. I think that _is_ his idea of playing gentle.” Though the world was still spinning a bit, Sans could see the smaller dog leaning out of the sentry post with concern. “Maybe try playing dead? He’ll lose interest if you’re not running or moving.”

It was worth a shot. Sans was still too dizzy to move much anyway, for the moment. Hey lay still in the snow and, trying to be as boring as possible.

The big dog hopped back and forth, play-bowing, and gave a deafening bark, but Sans didn’t respond. He didn’t even turn his skull to follow the dog. The dog nudged him with its nose, but he stayed limp, letting it roll him over in the snow. Then it seized his spine between its teeth and picked him up.

“This isn’t working!” Sans yelled, hanging uncomfortably from its jaws.

The smaller dog grimaced apologetically.

Sans struggled and summoned some bone attacks, which bounced off the big dog’s thick coat without seeming to do any damage. The dog lifted its head and opened its jaws just enough to snap up the rest of him, leaving only his arms and legs sticking out of either side of its mouth.

He could hear the smaller dog scolding, though it was muffled from inside the bigger dog’s mouth. “—better not do what I think you’re doing. Bad dog, Paps. Drop it!” But the big dog didn’t drop him. It held him, pressed between its tongue and the roof of its mouth, hot and damp and smelling of dog-breath. Its teeth rested against his femurs and humeri, and he really hoped it wasn’t going to bite down.

The dog did worse. Its tongue rose up beneath him, pushing him back, his arms and legs caught in the corners of its jaws until he was forced to bend at the hips as the dog pushed his pelvis alarmingly deep into its throat.

Outside, the smaller dog watched in dismay. Sans’s last-ditch array of bone attacks hit the bigger dog in the face, annoying him but not stopping him from gulping the skeleton down.

“Don’t look at me,” said the smaller dog. “Those weren’t my attacks.”

The big dog settled contentedly in the snow, unperturbed by the scattered bone attacks that appeared centered around his stomach. A few of them even hit him, but he didn’t seem to notice.

The smaller dog sighed, resting his head on one paw as he watched the attacks grow more feeble and finally cease. “Well. I don’t think he was gonna find his brother anyway.” He lifted his head sternly. “Papyrus. You gotta stop doing that.”

The big dog only yawned.

“Or if you’re gonna do it anyway, the least you could do is share. You’re not the only dog that likes bones, y’know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doggertale Sans tries. He just doesn't try very hard.


	7. TLK part 6: Return to Doggertale Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Which skeletons are still alive? Let's try to kill them off too.  
> (But he refused.)
> 
> Papyrus visits the morally questionable dogs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story thus far: Swap Paps nommed all the Sanses except Mustard and Blueberry (Taco). Then he visited Doggertale and got eaten by a dog. Mustard was eventually rescued by Swap Alphys and Blueberry, but ran off to try and get home without talking to them much. He eventually made it. Blueberry went looking for his brother and also got eaten by a dog.
> 
> I can't tell if anyone liked the previous chapter. I kinda feel like I jumped the shark in the second sentence up there. But since sharks cannot be un-jumped... maybe it was just too much of the same! So: now for something completely different! Or, I tried to keep this a murder-fest but Papyrus wasn't having it.
> 
> (Time to add more warnings to the tags because dismemberment and bleeding magic!)

Alphys had stayed behind so that she could re-open the portal if it closed. It was just as well. The creepy abandoned basement was cold enough, but out here in the snowy woods was even colder, and she was a cold-blooded monster.   
  
But it was nothing the Great Papyrus was not already accustomed to! In fact, it seemed to be the exact same forest Papyrus was accustomed to patrolling back in his own universe. His patrols might have been sporadic since Sans’s disappearance, but he still knew this forest like the back of his glove. Looking around, he easily identified this part of the forest as just beyond Sans’s sentry post, on the Ruins side.  
  
He struck out towards Sans’s sentry post, and as he approached it, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There was Sans, sleeping on duty as usual. His soul skipped as he ran up to the sentry station, but something seemed wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it until Sans lifted his head—it was far too furry. And now that he could see his face, he found it wasn’t Sans at all, but a Sans-sized dog. His soul sank in disappointment.  
  
The dog blinked in surprise as it registered his presence.  
  
“OH! GREETINGS!” He couldn’t be rude to the dog just because it hadn’t been Sans after all. “I WONDER IF YOU CAN HELP ME. I AM LOOKING FOR MY BROTHER!”  
  
“Your… brother?” The dog winced. “Uh. I don’t think I can help…” It paused and looked him over, licking its lips. “Actually, ya know, I might have some information.”  
  
“HAVE YOU SEEN SANS? HE’S A SKELETON, LIKE ME, BUT ABOUT YOUR HEIGHT.”  
  
“Sans?” the dog repeated, confused, then recovered its composure, crossing its paws on the sentry post counter. “I can tell you what I saw, but you gotta make it worth my while.”  
  
“WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT?” Papyrus wondered if he had enough gold.  
  
“I’ll trade information for one of your bones.”  
  
“ONE OF MY… WHAT?”  
  
“Maybe that one.” The dog pointed at his right humerus.  
  
“WHAT? I DON’T THINK THAT IS…” The dog’s request seemed rather beyond the pale, but when it came down to it Papyrus wouldn’t begrudge losing his arm if it helped him get Sans back.  
  
“Or I could just delay you here until my brother shows up. Believe me, you won’t have a good time.”  
  
“I DIDN’T SAY NO. BUT YOU UNDERESTIMATE THE GREAT PAPYRUS.” What made this dog think he could keep Papyrus here?  
  
“Your name’s Papyrus and your brother’s name is Sans? I’ll give you some information for free. I’m betting your brother has only one HP.”  
  
“HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? DID YOU SEE HIM?”  
  
“Well, my name is also Sans. Do you see what I’m getting at?”  
  
“YOU ONLY HAVE ONE HP?” That was a bizarre coincidence.  
  
“Yeah, and I’m betting you don’t want to dust me.” The dog lunged forward and sank its teeth into the bone it had been eying.  
  
“FINE, TAKE IT. JUST TELL ME WHERE MY BROTHER IS.”  
  
The dog pulled, but the bone didn’t come loose from Papyrus’s shoulder. Papyrus pulled too, consciously trying to relax the magic that was holding the bone in place. He thought he might have to take off his armor and pry it loose, when finally it came free with a pop and a spurt of liquid magic. The dog fell over backward, holding the humerus in its jaws.  
  
“NOW TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT MY BROTHER!” Papyrus hoped he wouldn’t bleed to death, or pass out before he could find Sans.  
  
The dog seated itself at the sentry post again, placing Papyrus’s arm on the counter. His ulna and radius were still attached, of course, so the entire arm had come loose intact. Papyrus felt a little queasy looking at it. Some orange magic was dripping sluggishly from the detached end.  
  
“You’re not gonna like this,” the dog warned. Papyrus waited for it to continue. “Two skeletons came through here. One was tall, like you—in fact, he looked just like you, except he was wearing an orange sweater or somethin’. And he gave me a bad vibe, not like you at all. Anyway, he’s dead.”  
  
“OH!” Papyrus wasn’t sure who this other tall skeleton could be, but it was still unfortunate that he had died.  
  
“The other one was just a few days ago. Shorter, about my height, wearing a blue bandanna.”  
  
“A FEW DAYS AGO?” That must be Sans—he didn’t normally wear a bandanna, but there could be any number of reasons he’d changed clothes during the time he’d been missing. And if he’d been through here only a few days ago, Papyrus could catch up with him!  
  
“Yeah.” The dog looked down at the bone on the table. “The thing is, he’s also dead.”  
  
“DE—ARE YOU SURE?” Papyrus felt as if his soul had fallen into his boots.  
  
“I saw it myself.”  
  
“DO YOU HAVE—WHERE’S HIS DUST?” Papyrus couldn’t believe that Sans was dead. But if it were true, there would be dust to prove it. And he would need it for a proper funeral.  
  
“No, no dust.”  
  
“BUT IF THERE’S NO DUST, HOW DO YOU KNOW HE’S ACTUALLY DEAD?”  
  
“Believe me, I was there. You probably don’t wanna know.” The dog perked up its ears. “And if you don’t wanna be dead too, you’d better get back to wherever you came from, like right now. I hear my brother coming.”  
  
“I CAN’T JUST LEAVE WITHOUT MY BROTHER—”  
  
“Look, it ain’t my business if you wanna stay and get eaten, but I left your femurs there so you could run away. Do what you want; I’m gonna go bury this. Don’t wanna share with him when he’s been hogging all the bones.” The dog picked up Papyrus’s humerus, turned around and trotted away, the hand dragging along the snow.  
  
Papyrus stood frozen for several seconds, trying to process what the dog had said. The dog looked over its shoulder and glared at him, nodding back the way he had come, before it disappeared among the trees. The dog had a lot of work to do to become a good person, but it did seem to care if he lived or died. It wasn’t like him to run away from danger, but he was in a weakened state. And if something did happen to him, he’d never find out what really happened to Sans. He decided to rejoin Alphys and regroup.  
  
***  
  
“I’M GONNA SKIN THAT DOG ALIVE!”  
  
“Undyne, d-don’t get him worked up; it could make the bleeding worse.”  
  
Alphys had refused to let him talk until they got back to their own universe and she had started patching him up. They were still in the basement lab, Papyrus naked from the waist up, Alphys digging in the first aid kit.  
  
“I’m sure if I can just talk to him again he’ll tell me what happened to Sans,” Papyrus said.  
  
“And then I’ll skin him,” Undyne growled.  
  
“A-actually,” said Alphys, “even if the dog is telling the truth, we d-don’t know for sure that the skeleton he saw was Sans.”  
  
“Don’t give him false, hope, Al. How many short blue-clad skeletons do you think are wandering around?”  
  
“B-but if the dog saw another skeleton that looked like Papyrus, who’s to say there couldn’t be other skeletons that look like Sans?”  
  
“YOU’RE RIGHT!” Papyrus sat up. “EVEN IF THAT SKELETON IS DEAD, THERE’S NO PROOF IT WAS SANS! IT’S STILL VERY SAD, OF COURSE. BUT SANS IS ALIVE SOMEWHERE!”  
  
“That’s fair,” Undyne agreed. “If there’s a universe of only dogs, there could be a whole universe of little blue-clad skeletons somewhere. But Paps, that doesn’t necessarily mean—”  
  
“I KNOW. BUT I CAN’T GIVE UP WHILE THERE’S STILL A CHANCE!”  
  
“The machine in the first universe we went to had a l-l-list of all the other universes it had connected with. There were k-kind of a lot.”  
  
“WE CAN ALSO TRY TO CONTACT THE MONSTERS THAT LIVE IN THE FIRST UNIVERSE, OUTSIDE THE CREEPY BASEMENT LAB.”  
  
“Y-yeah. We have a lot of leads to follow now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus still believes in Doggertale Sans. He can do a little bit better!
> 
> Also, don't miss this [drabble (warning for rape/non-con)](http://idontevenknowwhattoputhereugh.tumblr.com/post/162493602135/completely-reposted-because-i-made-a-complete-mess) about what would've happened if Swap Paps had done safe vore, because it's really just as bad X3


	8. TLK part 7: Papyrus's Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aw, the vore fic thinks it’s some kind of whacky superhero team hijinks story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus is in control of the plotline now.

It was simply impractical for all the Papyri to go on every mission. A lot had wanted to come, especially since they were nearing the bottom of the list of universes to visit. Papyrus had chosen a small team to accompany him to the second-to-last universe on the list.  
  
“Hello, Alphys.” Papyrus stepped through the portal into the creepy basement dungeon universe, which they called Swap, because everything was swapped. Two Alphyses looked up at the greeting, his usual Alphys fiddling with the interdimensional video-phone she’d built, and this universe’s battle-hardened and scarred Alphys.  
  
“Hey, Lefty!” The scarred Alphys gave him a friendly punch in his remaining arm. “Who are we bringing today?”  
  
“I’ve invited Thunder and Noodles.”  
  
The bespectacled Alphys called up the Papyrus nicknamed Thunder for his electric-element magic, to be sure he was ready, and then opened a portal for him. Thunder stepped through, casting a stern glance around the room. He was one of the more different Papyri, with jagged teeth and a white scarf over spiky black armor. Papyrus wouldn’t have suspected they were interdimensional twins if he hadn’t answered to the name Papyrus and been missing a brother named Sans.  
  
“Lefty,” Thunder said in greeting. “This is the second-to-last place, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yes. I hope we find them!”  
  
“Or whoever took them.” Thunder crackled with menacing energy.  
  
Noodles stepped out of Alphys’s next portal. Thunder shot Papyrus a glance, annoyed at his choice of companions. Noodles, named because he seemed to like spaghetti the most out of any of them, was a bit flaky. But he was a very useful skeleton.  
  
“Hello, Noodles! Are we all ready?”  
  
The gathered monsters nodded, and Alphys opened a new portal.  
  
***  
  
It was another iteration of the same basement lab. Papyrus and Alphys (the scarred one) took the lead in exploring the room. It was a little dusty but it didn’t have the air of being abandoned for an extended time. There was no machine, but the space where the machine would have been was empty.  
  
“Noodles, let’s go outside,” Papyrus said. Noodles took his and Alphys’s hands, and Thunder placed a hand on Noodles’s arm. Noodles teleported them to the other side of the door.  
  
It was Snowdin, much like Papyrus’s own Snowdin. The decor seemed off, darker. He didn’t spend much time looking around; the others would alert him if there was anything important. He walked over to the front door of the house and knocked.  
  
After a few moments, the door flew open, revealing a skeleton who resembled Thunder, if he’d worn red instead of white, and with more scars.  
  
“WHO ARE YOU?” the skeleton demanded.  
  
“My name is Papyrus. Wait, I know—your name is also Papyrus, right?” Papyrus tried to convince him not to slam the door closed again. “You can call me Lefty.” He held up his left hand. “And this is Papyrus and Papyrus, but because that’s very confusing, please call them Thunder and Noodles. Perhaps you recognize Alphys, but this is a different Alphys.”  
  
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” The native Papyrus yelled cautiously.  
  
“We are looking for our brothers.” Papyrus stopped to see if the other would volunteer any information. He’d had this conversation a number of times, with Papyri who were also missing their brothers and eager to cooperate. But this Papyrus just looked at him, jaws tight.  
  
“Forgive me for asking,” Papyrus continued. “But is YOUR brother—?”  
  
“HE IS FINE!”  
  
The Papyri looked at each other in relief.  
  
“OH! GOOD!” Papyrus was so relieved he raised his voice. “CAN YOU TELL US IF YOU’VE NOTICED ANYTHING STRANGE? PERHAPS OTHER SKELETONS WHO DON’T BELONG HERE?”  
  
The native Papyrus glared at him, evaluating. “COME INSIDE.” He stepped back from the door so they could file in. Then he folded his arms. “WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU?”  
  
“I know this is very strange,” Papyrus said, “but as a Papyrus, you must know how much we care for our brothers. Even the tough guys like Thunder here.”  
  
“Not all of you,” the other Papyrus said almost quietly.  
  
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”  
  
The native Papyrus just glared.  
  
“HAVE YOU MET ANOTHER PAPYRUS BEFORE?” asked Noodles.  
  
“No.”  
  
“THEN HOW WOULD YOU KNOW IF—”  
  
Papyrus placed a restraining hand on Noodles’s shoulder. “Are you saying there is a Papyrus that doesn’t care about his brother?”  
  
The native Papyrus looked away. “IT IS A LONG STORY.”  
  
“What’s all the racket, Boss?”  
  
Papyrus’s soul skipped as he saw Sans emerge yawning on the upper level of the house. But it wasn’t his Sans. The Sans caught sight of him and immediately ducked back into his room.  
  
“I’ve seen him before! That was the skeleton we found chained in the—” Alphys stopped herself, looking up at the native Papyrus.  
  
“He told me what happened.” He looked appraisingly at Alphys. Perhaps his Sans had told him about her as well.  
  
“Can we—talk?” Papyrus asked. “None of us knows what happened to our brothers. If yours came back to you, maybe he knows something that can help us find the rest of them.”  
  
The other Papyrus fixed him with a hard look before answering. “You are not going to like it.”  
  
“We would rather know than remain ignorant.”  
  
“If he’s dead, I need to know what happened so I can avenge him,” said Thunder. Alphys nodded enthusiastically. Papyrus clenched his fist.  
  
“You may not even get that satisfaction.” The other Papyrus didn’t emote much, but Papyrus detected a trace of sympathy. “Very well. I will tell you what I can. But first I will consult with my brother; it’s his story to decide how much he wants you to know. Stay here and do not touch anything!”  
  
The native Papyrus stalked up the stairs and into his brother’s room. Papyrus looked at the others.  
  
“Let’s call him Edge,” piped Noodles.  
  
“We don’t know if he’s going to want to join our team,” said Papyrus.  
  
“Depending on what he tells us, there might not even be a team,” added Alphys. “If you’re forced to give up on—if there’s no hope of completing our mission, a lot of us might just go our separate ways.”  
  
“I can’t give up,” Papyrus insisted.  
  
“We can still seek vengeance,” said Thunder.  
  
“What if the monster who killed them is already dead?” said Alphys. “Or it was just a freak accident and no one was responsible? Or they’re not dead, just lost somewhere we can’t reach them?”  
  
“The Great Papyrus never—”  
  
Papyrus was interrupted as Edge reappeared. “Which of your Sanses has been missing the longest?” he demanded without preamble.  
  
Papyrus raised his hand. “Mine was the first to go missing, that we know of.”  
  
“All right. My brother wishes to speak to you. The rest of you wait out here.”


	9. TLK part 8: Mustard's Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aw, the vore fic thinks it’s some kind of serious drama.

Papyrus had some strong feelings about seeing Sans, even if it wasn’t his Sans. He wasn’t sure what feelings they were exactly, but they were strong. The smaller skeleton sitting on the mattress looked so similar to his real brother, and yet so different.  
  
“You really do look like him,” said Sans, echoing his thoughts.  
  
“What? Who?” He looked at Edge. Did he really resemble this universe’s Papyrus?  
  
“No, like the asshole who kidnapped me. And your brother.”  
  
“I do?”  
  
“Yeah, you look identical. Except he always wore an orange hoodie.”  
  
Something almost clicked in Papyrus’s mind.  
  
“So … Guess I gotta tell you what happened, huh?”  
  
“I can tell him,” Edge offered gruffly.  
  
“No, it’s okay. I feel like I owe him that much.”  
  
Sans stopped to gather his thoughts and the pause stretched on.  
  
“Sans,” Papyrus addressed him. “Is my brother—dead?”  
  
Sans looked away. “Yeah.”  
  
“You’re—you’re sure?”  
  
“I’m sure.”  
  
“How did it happen?” Papyrus couldn’t accept that. His mind could comprehend the idea as an intellectual exercise, but not as something that could have actually happened.  
  
“That asshole, he…” Sans sighed. “He ate him.”  
  
“What?” Papyrus couldn’t make any sense of that statement.  
  
“He had some kind of shrink ray. He actually shrank me first, as a test, but then when it worked he… He shrank Ketchup and then…”  
  
Papyrus’s mind couldn’t keep up with any of this. “Shrink ray? Ketchup?”  
  
“Ketchup was my nickname for your brother, since it was confusing if we were both ‘Sans.’ I’m ‘Mustard.’”  
  
Papyrus staggered. Sans—Mustard reached out as if to support him, but he was out of reach. Edge took his arm instead.  
  
“Ketchup never mentioned you only got one arm,” said Mustard, apparently trying to distract him.  
  
“That is … a recent development.”  
  
“What happened? I mean, if you don’t mind talkin’ about it.”  
  
“No, we need to … pool our information … I will tell you. After Sans went missing, I searched everywhere. Eventually I convinced Dr. Alphys to help, but we had no idea—it took us too long. We eventually—I should say Alphys—I was utterly useless—she tracked him to the universe you were brought to, but there was nobody there. But Alphys was able to find out which other universes had been visited using the machine there. This was after you had escaped. The other Alphys told me about you, and the Sans who originated in that universe—he went missing after you left. Alphys thinks he was looking for you or his brother.   
  
“Ah, but I did not know that at the time. I was only looking for Sans, and I thought he might have been the last one to use the machine. So I went to the most recent destination, and there I met a dog—he told me—” Papyrus realized the significance of what he’d heard earlier. “He saw a skeleton with an orange sweater. That must have been the kidnapper!”  
  
“That doesn’t sound like the universe I ended up in when I—escaped,” said Mustard. “It had, um, tiny little houses and stuff.”  
  
“Yes, that was the next universe down the list. It was listed twice. Perhaps the local Sans went looking for you there before the universe with the dog.”  
  
“Did the dog place repeat further down the list?” asked Edge. “Maybe the local Sans went there looking for his brother.”  
  
“Yes, that was the last one before the one with the tiny houses.”  
  
“So that’s where that fucker ended up,” said Mustard. “I hope the dogs ate him.”  
  
“I think—they might have. I met a dog there—and this happened—” He looked down at his missing arm. “—but it wasn’t entirely their fault. And they seemed adamant that I leave before another dog arrived, for my safety.”  
  
“The dog that was concerned for your safety did that?” Mustard snorted with disbelief.  
  
“Yes,” said Papyrus, not entirely convinced of the dog’s good intentions himself. “But as I was saying, the dog told me that the skeleton with the orange sweater was dead! When I told Alphys about it—not my Alphys but the other Alphys—she said it sounded like her own Papyrus. But it might have actually been the kidnapper!”  
  
Mustard and Edge looked at each other. “Papyrus. The kidnapper _was_ that Papyrus.”  
  
“What? But—Alphys never—How could—?” Papyrus would have fallen if Edge hadn’t caught him again.  
  
“I, uh, never told Alphys much of what happened. My bad,” said Mustard. “You mean the scarred-up, Royal Guard version of Alphys, right? I didn’t really wanna tarnish her image of her Papyrus, I guess. And things happened so fast, I didn’t tell anyone what happened until after I got back here.”  
  
Some of the others had considered the Swap universe’s Papyrus a suspect—since it was his basement that had all those creepy chains. But Papyrus had dismissed the idea out of hand. And after meeting a dozen different versions of himself in a dozen different universe, he had only been more convinced that a Papyrus wouldn’t hurt a Sans—especially not in the unspeakable ways Mustard described as he filled in more details of his story.  
  
Papyrus looked up at Edge, remembering what he’d said about “not all” Papyri cared for their brothers.  
  
“You say he had a shrink ray?”  
  
Mustard hesitated. “Yeah, that’s how he…” He trailed off.  
  
“All those miniature clothes. They came from other Sanses he kidnapped.” Suddenly it all fit. The drawer full of doll-sized outfits, many of which the various Papyri recognized as belonging to their brothers, had been very, very odd.  
  
“What are you going to do?” asked Edge.  
  
“I think I will have to talk to that dog again after all. If the Papyrus from the Swap universe really was the kidnapper—”  
  
“He was,” asserted Mustard.  
  
“Sorry. I did not mean to disbelieve you. It is just hard to accept.” Papyrus lowered his gaze. “We will want to find out more about what happened to him. Meanwhile. Mustard, I know this is hard to talk about.” Papyrus felt very tired himself. “Can you give us details about the other Sanses you saw? Could any of them have survived?”  
  
“Hate to disappoint ya but I’m 100% certain they’re all dead. You can identify them by the clothes. I’m pretty sure he never brought anyone in naked, so they should all be there.”  
  
“Ah. Yes.” Papyrus supposed Mustard didn’t want to think back on every individual death he’d witnessed.  
  
“I barely got a look at you all downstairs, but who did you bring with you? I saw Battle-Scarred Alphys, one guy who looks pretty much like you but with two arms, and who’s the other one?”  
  
“That’s Thunder.”  
  
“He’s got, what, lightning magic?”  
  
“That’s right.”  
  
“His brother too?”  
  
Papyrus nodded.  
  
Mustard leaned over, covering his mouth with one hand.  
  
“I think we have talked enough for now,” said Edge, moving to guide Papyrus back out.  
  
“Thank you, Mu—I mean Sans,” Papyrus said before he let himself be led away. “I know that this was difficult to talk about.”  
  
Mustard nodded without looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *quietly buys out all the lamp shades*
> 
> Last chapter tomorrow and then I am seriously finished for real this time.


	10. TLK part 9: Return to Doggertale Yet Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus Squad seeks closure, but not even a swarm of Papyruses can wrangle an actual happy ending out of this story.  
> unu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Killing a skeleton in this fic would be far too upsetting!  
> What? The first five chapters? An unspecified but massive body count?  
> I don’t remember anything like that!
> 
> Besides, there were no bodies left, not even dust X3

Papyrus didn’t invite Battle-Scarred Alphys on this mission. For one thing, it was likely going to be cold and snowy the whole time. And, maybe a little bit, he was annoyed that she hadn’t been more communicative about what her universe’s native Papyrus looked like. If he’d put together the facts earlier maybe it wouldn’t—well, it still would have been a horrible shock. But surely it hadn’t helped Mustard to be the one to break the news to him.  
  
He brought Thunder and Noodles, since they were already involved, and one more Papyrus nicknamed Cloudy for the cotton-candy-like ruff on his jacket. He was formidable in a pinch but not quick to cause trouble, which Thunder and Scarred Alphys sometimes were.  
  
The dog that said its name was Sans was sleeping at its sentry post, the same as the previous time Papyrus had visited. It looked up as they approached. It appeared nervous at the arrival of so many skeletons, but didn’t run away. Papyrus stalked purposefully up to the sentry post.  
  
“What are you doing back here?” the dog asked “Come to make another donation?” It was playing it cool, but experience with the dogs in his own Snowdin let Papyrus read the tilt of its ears. It was definitely nervous.  
  
“Er, no. We just want more information about what happened to the other skeletons who came here before me.”  
  
“I don’t know why you bothered. I told you what happened to the short one. I woulda thought you could figure out what happened to the tall one.”  
  
“Of course I suspect. But I want to know for sure.”  
  
“You came all the way here for that?” The dog sat up straighter. “You’re some kinda alternate universe version of my brother, right? I know you’re smart enough to figure it out.” He glanced around at the other Papyri. “Who’re your friends?”  
  
Papyrus paused. Apparently the similarities between him and the others weren’t enough for the dog to realize they were all interdimensional twins. From the dog’s point of view, the default Papyrus was a dog, after all, not a skeleton. “They’re also alternate universe versions of me and your brother.” Papyrus reasoned that perhaps being open with the dog would win his trust, but Thunder grumbled disapprovingly, leaning menacingly over the sentry station counter. “As was…” Papyrus continued, but he still found it hard to accept. “As was the first skeleton that came here, with the orange hoodie.”  
  
“So, what, you’re looking out for him out of a sense of skeleton-Papyrus solidarity?” The dog’s hackles rose a little. “Are you out for revenge or somethin’?”  
  
Papyrus was startled the dog had figured it out—well, he himself didn’t believe in revenge, but Thunder certainly did, and he wouldn’t entirely put it past Cloudy.  
  
“It may be four against one, but I’ve got a surprise or two up my sleeve.” The dog pulled something from beneath the counter of the sentry station—it looked like a ray gun from those science fiction magazines Sans had found in the dump in Waterfall. The dog fired it at Thunder, who disappeared—no, he was still there, on the counter, but miniaturized. Of course. The first skeleton had had a shrink ray, and now the dog had it.  
  
“What? No, no,” Papyrus rushed to explain. “We aren’t looking for revenge on _you_. It’s the—”  
  
“I’m not just gonna sit here and let you take revenge on my brother, either.” The dog fired the ray at Papyrus.  
  
“That isn’t what he meant.” Cloudy intervened as the dog pointed the ray at Noodles, stepping in front of the other skeleton with his hands raised. “The only monster we want revenge on is that other skeleton in the orange hoodie.”  
  
“Yeah, sure.” The dog fired the ray and Cloudy dropped into the snow, shrunken. “What’s a slightly different skeleton version of you gonna do that’d make you want revenge?”  
  
“I’ll tell you,” Papyrus piped up, having recovered from the disorienting effects of the shrink ray, “if you’ll tell us exactly what happened when the first skeleton came through.”  
  
The dog looked down at him. “I would, except you probably want to include me not eating you in that deal, and here you are all conveniently bite-sized.”  
  
Papyrus turned to Noodles. They had discussed the possibility of the dog’s appetite for bones getting in the way, although no one had anticipated the dog having a shrink ray.  
  
“Oh. Oh yeah. Wait!” said Noodles. “I have something you might find even tastier!”  
  
“It’s not spaghetti, is it?” The dog was unenthused.  
  
“No!” Noodles was indignant at the insult to spaghetti, but he recovered and produced a bottle of ketchup. “It’s this!”  
  
The dog lowered the shrink ray, eyes widening. “What is that?”  
  
“It’s ketchup.” Noodles handed it to the dog.  
  
“Wow.” The dog accepted it with the paw not occupied by the ray gun, staring at it in apparent awe as he figured out how to open it, then smirked. “I could smell it a mile away. You think dogs don’t know what ketchup is? But thanks! I do like this stuff!”  
  
The dog quickly splattered Thunder with ketchup, set down the bottle, picked up the skeleton, and raised him over his open jaws, lifting the ray gun with his other forepaw to point at Noodles.  
  
Thunder summoned a blaster and shot a beam of electricity at the dog, but it just made his fur a little frizzy. The dog smiled wider at its inefficacy, lowering Thunder toward its tongue. Noodles lunged forward, reaching for Thunder. The dog fired its ray gun. The blaster bit down on the paw holding Thunder, and the dog dropped him. Fortunately Noodles had distracted the dog enough that Thunder wasn’t lined up correctly with its mouth and fell onto the counter. Noodles landed on the counter, too, now bite-sized.  
  
“Get to Noodles!” Papyrus yelled. By the time he and Thunder had both reached Noodles, Noodles was oriented enough to teleport them all off the counter.  
  
“Back to the portal,” said Thunder, as they sank into the snow, which was extremely deep at this size.  
  
“Noodles, can you grab Cloudy and then stop for us on the way to the portal?” Papyrus asked.  
  
Noodles nodded and vanished, reappearing with Cloudy in tow a few moments later. As soon as the others had grabbed onto them, they were yanked through space into…more deep snow.  
  
“My sense of distance is really thrown off by being small,” explained Noodles.  
  
Papyrus worried whether they would be able to go through the portal. Wasn’t it raised a little off the ground? It had been easy to step through on the way here, but at this size…  
  
He needn’t have worried. Noodles’s next jump brought them within sight of the portal, and another threw them into it.  
  
***  
  
“I didn’t know you could do that, Noodles.”  
  
“Do what?”  
  
“Manipulate horizontal momentum at the end of a teleport.”  
  
“Oh yeah. It’s necessary if you teleport onto a moving vehicle or something.”  
  
“So that’s it?” interrupted Thunder.  
  
“What’s it?” Papyrus found he really wanted to focus on the mechanics of teleportation right now.  
  
“The culprit is dead. There’s … nothing more we can do.”  
  
“That’s … Team Papyrus can’t … There must be something …”  
  
“You’re right, Lefty,” Cloudy spoke up quietly. “Even if our original goal is out of reach, an organized team of Papyruses ought to be able to accomplish something.”  
  
“Like what?” grunted Thunder.  
  
“I have an idea,” said Noodles. Everyone looked at him. “We could go rescue Gaster.”  
  
“Who’s Gaster?” said Papyrus.  
  
Alphys came in, walked down the stairs, and dropped her cup of ramen when she saw them. “How did you get so small?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's over! I swear this time. Because if I somehow feel the need to write any more I'll make it a separate story.  
> Did anyone make it to the end of this? (I haven't gotten any comments since part 4.)  
> Should I go back and de-canon-ize everything after Mustard finally got home?  
> Should I write further adventures of the Papyrus Squad?  
> Should I draw character designs for all the random AU skeletons?


End file.
